MIT TechTV - Videos tagged with oceanVideos from MIT TechTVhttp://ttv.mit.edu/tags/1727-ocean/videos.rss
Delivering Green: Three Case Studies in Carbon-Efficient Logistics
Logistics is a leading source of carbon. Nearly 6 percent of the greenhouse gases generated by humans come from the flow of products to consumers.

Reducing these emissions takes more than setting goals; it requires clear, measurable initiatives that hit sustainability targets while delivering lower costs and higher service levels.

Three companies, Boise Inc., Caterpillar Inc., and Ocean Spray, in collaboration with the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and the MIT Center for Transportation (MIT CTL), have completed carbon-reduction projects that meet these goals. The results are now available in three compelling case studies.

MIT CTL invites you to hear these stories by attending our next webinar, Delivering Green: Three Case Studies in Carbon-Efficient Logistics, on April 17th, 2013, at 1pm EST, the third event in MIT CTL’s Advances in Supply Chain webinar series. Learn how these companies slowed the growth of logistics-related emissions through mode shifting, load consolidation, and network redesign – and captured cost savings as well as service improvements.

Dr. Edgar Blanco, MIT CTL, will be joined by EDF’s Jason Mathers, Ross Corthell from Boise, Kristine Young from Ocean Spray, and Zena Onstott from Caterpillar to share their insights from these projects.

Most supply chains are global to some degree, which means that you are probably managing a complicated transportation network that crosses a number of borders, uses multiple modes, and involves a variety of third party companies. And it is likely that ocean shipping is a key part of the transportation mix.

How do you monitor and manage the reliability of the vital ocean segment of your global supply chain?

Are you "managing by anecdote" or do you have real data to support the management practices you are using?

This type of data is now available as a result of new research at the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics (CTL). The research findings offer a deeper understanding of the incentives and performance mechanisms that shippers, carriers and third parties can use to increase the efficiency of ocean transportation.

CTL invites you to explore the research in our webinar: "Ocean Transportation Reliability: Myths, Realities, and Impacts," that took place on February 6th, 2013, at 1:00 pm EDT.

Dr. Chris Caplice and Dr. Basak Kalcanci described and debunked common myths surrounding ocean transportation, using actual transactional data. Additionally, they described the impact that transit time variability has on logistics costs and outline the business case for addressing this variability.

The event, the second in CTL's Advances in Supply Chain Webinar Series, also covers how shippers currently – and, more importantly, how they should – design, procure, and manage their global ocean transportation networks and gauge the impact of ocean shipping on overall logistics costs.

License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SAMore information at http://ocw.mit.edu/termsMore courses at http://ocw.mit.edu]]>
Fri, 07 Sep 2012 14:58:44 -0400http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/20699-19-regulation-of-productivity
http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/20699-19-regulation-of-productivity
19. Regulation of Productivity
MIT 7.014 Introductory Biology, Spring 2005 Modeling the Arctic Ocean - MITgcm on Ice
Temperature in the Arctic region has been rising at approximately twice the global average rate in the past 100 years (Solomon et al., Technical Summary, IPCC 2007). To understand the effect of warming on the Arctic sea ice and ocean circulation, An Nguyen and colleagues simulated a data-constrained coupled ocean and sea ice state estimate at high horizontal resolution. One area of great interest is the Chukchi Sea where the source of an important water mass, the Western Arctic upper halocline, is formed.

The upper halocline, a layer of high vertical salinity gradient and near-freezing temperature, resides at depths 50-200m and insulates the surface sea ice from the heat stored in the Atlantic Water at depths below 300m. Thus an understanding of its origin, ventilation, and variability can improve our understanding in the Arctic Ocean circulation and in the halocline's contribution to sea ice changes.

In this video interview, polar researcher An Nguyen presents the results of a recently published ocean and sea-ice modeling study of the Chukchi Sea she co-authored with researchers at JPL.

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Fri, 03 Aug 2012 11:18:41 -0400http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/20248-modeling-the-arctic-ocean-mitgcm-on-ice
http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/20248-modeling-the-arctic-ocean-mitgcm-on-ice
Modeling the Arctic Ocean - MITgcm on Ice
EAPS Perpetual Ocean
The movie "Perpetual Ocean", created from simulations carried out as part of the MIT/NASA-JPL ECCO2 collaboration as visualized by the NASA Goddard Scientific Visualization Studio - which has been going a little viral over the past few days - shows ocean surface currents around the world during the period from June 2005 through December 2007. The animation does not include a narration or annotations; the goal of its creators was to use ocean flow data to create a simple, visceral experience.

MITgcm ( the MIT General Circulation Model ) is a numerical model developed by MIT ocean modelers (and free for anyone to download and play with) that finds wide use within the oceanographic modeling community worldwide.

Description: The wind"up session of this multi"part symposium on women at MIT brings together brains and brine -- two researchers' pioneering work in neuroscience and ocean microbes.

In 1985, Sallie (Penny) Chisholm discovered Prochlorococcus, a "tiny, round, green thing that's not so beautiful but extraordinary." Lined up, 100 of these sub"micron size phytoplankton come to the width of a human hair, and they turn out to be the most abundant photosynthetic cell on the planet. There are so many Prochlorococcus distributed through global oceans that their accumulated weight would amount to one billion people. Most important, life as we know it would not be possible without these (and other) photosynthetic ocean creatures, which produce a large share of the planet's oxygen.

Chisholm has spent more than two decades devoted to in"depth study of Prochlorococcus, which even as a single species presents many "ecotypes." Some fare better in great depths, far from the sun, others closer to the surface. Research has verified 12 genetically different strains of Prochlorococcus occupying different ocean niches _ and given that there are 1027 cells in the wild, many more genomes are literally floating around. Chisholm ultimately wants to understand why certain types of Prochlorococcus appear in particular ecosystems, and not in others. For instance, Prochlorococcus follow the Gulf Stream, but "disappear near Massachusetts." With faster gene sequencing, Chisholm and colleagues have been sampling seawater from around the world for Prochlorococcus, hoping to understand better the reasons for their diversity, and how they fit into the larger physical and chemical systems of the oceans.
Nancy Kanwisher approaches fundamental questions involving the nature of the human mind using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), which enables investigation of both structure and function of the brain. In particular, Kanwisher has been exploring whether the brain features regions specialized for specific purposes. Her studies have turned up several such areas: the fusiform face area of the brain, responsible only for face recognition; the parahippocampal place area, a region that responds to images of places or scenes; and the "third and most disreputable region," the extrastriate body area, which responds to pictures of bodies, body parts _ whether stick figures or silhouettes.

These regions are found in the architecture of all normal human brains, Kanwisher says, and their existence raises additional questions that she and other researchers are pursuing. For instance, to learn when these areas become wired in the brain, Kanwisher scanned children. She learned that kids as young as five years showed the same face recognition brain activity as adults. There is evidence "implicating genes" in face recognition. But there is a role for experience as well. Although there is a brain region that responds strongly to visual words and letter strings, the "selectivity of the region" depends on an individual's history (such as familiarity with written characters from specific languages). Kanwisher concludes that while there are some "highly specialized bits" of the mind/brain made up of specialized components, "these may be relatively rare, and there is probably lots of general purpose machinery."

About the Speaker(s): From 2007 to 2010, Katrin Wehrheim served as assistant professor of math at MIT. She received the B.S. equiv. in mathematics and physics from the University of Hamburg in 1995, and the Diploma in physics from Imperial College in 1996. She completed the Ph.D. in mathematics at ETH Z orich in 2002. Wehrheim's thesis was awarded the ETH Medal. She continued at ETH Z orich as a postdoctoral fellow, 2002"03, before going to Princeton University as instructor, 2003"04. She was a member of Institute of Advanced Studies, 2004"06 and fellow at Princeton, 2005"06.

Wehrheim's research interests include problems in gauge theory and symplectic topology and PDEs, in particular the relations of gauge theoretic and symplectic Floer theories.

Description: The Deepwater Horizon disaster spread through not just a vast coastal ecosystem, but into diverse human communities lining the Gulf, many entirely dependent on the sea for their livelihoods. These three panelists describe their involvement in quite disparate response projects, which began shortly after the oil began gushing, and in some areas, continue today.

Working for the federal government, Wyman Briggs observed firsthand the massive resources brought to bear on the 4.9 million barrel spill: 48 thousand responders from 500 agencies and 20 different countries working at the peak of the emergency; 870 miles of boom and hundreds of skimming vessels deployed; 411 controlled burns of oil, and 770 thousand gallons of dispersant deposited. In spite of this armada reining in and attacking the mess, the technology (much of it unimproved in decades) left 26% of the oil unaccounted for. Scientists believe it is traveling in a "significant plume" deep in Gulf waters, says Briggs. And armies of people are still "working in marshes and walking the beaches" scooping up tarballs, sampling water, studying the effectiveness of dispersants and burning, and mapping out restoration and remediation

The spill made one thing clear, says Earthea Nance: the "relationship between economic development decisions and the impact on the environment." She frames this disaster in terms of "shrimp vs. petroleum," and as "the latest in a cumulative series of cascading disasters" for coastal communities rocked hard by Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Gustav, and the 'great recession.' Nance organized hearings where economically struggling residents voiced great concern about the "loss of a way of life and culture, which is based on the environment." They also worried that their air, water and soil are contaminated. Nance brought groups from Alaska affected by the Exxon Valdez spill to talk about their multi"decade trauma with legal claims, and the demise of fisheries. Gulf communities, she says, want to be more involved in monitoring the impacts to their environment. There is a major opportunity here, Nance believes, to train the long"term unemployed for new, green jobs.

When the BP rig blew, the timing could not have been worse for the 4,500 Vietnamese "Americans plying Gulf waters for shrimp, says James Dien Bui. Katrina left these seasonal workers saddled with debt, and the loss of another income"producing spring proved devastating to these family businesses. Bui led hundreds of focus groups from Alabama to Louisiana to discuss the challenges of Vietnamese" American communities, and found them craving "access to accurate and timely information," in language and forms they could understand. Some of these people are victimized by "predatory lawyers" offering instant cash for entering class action suits. Most of all, they want their jobs back. Bui is focusing on two priorities: helping residents with disaster claims; and creating "one"stop business centers" for job training and placement in such sustainable projects as an aquaculture park. One recent success: catering locally sourced food to create healthy meals in a New Orleans charter school.

About the Speaker(s): Amy Glasmeier was previously on the faculty at Penn State and the University of Texas at Austin, and was the John Whisman Scholar of the Appalachian Regional Commission.
She holds a B.S. in Environmental Studies and Planning from Sonoma State University and an M..A and Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from the University of California, Berkeley. Her publications consist of more than 50 scholarly articles and several books, including Manufacturing Time: Global Competition in the World Watch Industry, 1795"2000 (Guilford Press, 2000); and From Combines to Computers: Rural Services and Development in the Age of Information Technology with Marie Howland (SUNY Press, 1995). Her most recent book,An Atlas of Poverty in America: One Nation, Pulling Apart 1960"2003 (Routledge Press, 2005), examines the experience of people and places in poverty since the 1960s, looks across the last four decades at poverty in America and recounts the history of poverty policy since the 1940s.

Host(s): School of Science, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences

Description: While the government declared an end to the oil spill at the Macondo well on September 19, 2010, research into the causes and impacts of the Gulf disaster is ongoing. At the kickoff panel of a three"part symposium, three scientists discuss what they are learning about the disposition of the nearly 5 million gallons of oil, as well as gas and chemicals, injected into Gulf waters following the blowout.

A decade ago, a group of oil companies, including BP, sponsored a series of controlled releases of oil and methane off the coast of Norway. Much of what we know about underwater spills comes from these studies, says Eric Adams, who "laments" the lack of follow up research into deeper waters. Scientists learned that the light gas "provided a buoyant engine for crude migration," and that as this oil mix gushed from the site of injection, it formed small droplets. The Gulf spill, like these studies, involved oil mixed with natural gas. Much of this oil was similarly atomized, suggests Adams, and reduced in size further by chemical dispersants. The resultant miniature droplets could take as long as a year to rise to the surface, and are deposited at different layers in the water. Adams and others hope to create models for how oil diffused into water around the Deepwater Horizon site, and how the particles disperse over time.

Using an ultrahigh resolution mass spectrometer, Elizabeth Kujawinski has been sampling sea water at different distances from the well head to identify the presence of oil and dispersants. In particular, she wants to know how these components spread into Gulf waters. With help from the EPA, Kujawinski and her team learned the chemical signature of Corexit, the key dispersant used in the Gulf spill, where it was used heavily for the first time under water. She is busy "quantifying the molecule" in samples from various cruises, and comparing these samples to control batches of sea water. Says Kujawinski, "Our data is providing new insight into compounds that haven't been observed before" and making it possible to track dispersant chemicals, and oil, through the complex Gulf ecosystem in the months ahead.

All those booms laid out to protect fragile wetlands looked like swimming noodles from the air, and may have had just about the same impact, suggests Jerry Milgram. These booms, with their underwater curtains and floating foam tops, permit oil to go under or over whenever the current gets too strong. Oil containment simply won't work against energetic wind and waves. Decades ago, Milgram attempted to design booms that rode the waves better in gently agitated seas, and he came up with oil collection gadgets as part of these devices. They were too expensive "and fell into disuse." Once the oil escapes, booms and skimmers are a waste of resources. Says Milgram, "When it comes to surface cleanup and open sea, use your money for something better."

About the Speaker(s): Maria Zuber studies the structure and evolution of planets and has been an innovator in the application of spacecraft laser ranging and radio tracking systems to map the topography and gravity fields of the planets. Zuber has led or co"led spacecraft instrument investigations to the Moon and Mars, and she is involved in future missions to Mars, Mercury, and the asteroids Ceres and Vesta. The topographic map of Mars produced by her laser altimeter on the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft is the most accurate topography model for any planet, including Earth.

Zuber received her B.A. in Astrophysics (honors) and Geology, from the University of Pennsylvania in 1980, her Sc.M. in Geophysics in 1983, and her Ph.D. in Geophysics in 1986, both from Brown University.

Host(s): School of Science, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences

Description: It's a good thing for oil spill science that Richard Camilli was not yet on a flight to Australia when the Coast Guard called last May. An hour later and Camilli might have missed the urgent request to get a team together to measure the month"old leak from the Deepwater Horizon pipe. In a richly detailed and highly accessible talk, Camilli describes novel research he performed in the depths of the Gulf to quantify the disaster, helping to settle heated conflicts swirling around the oil gushing from BP's broken well head.

In addition to its vast scale, the spill posed other uniquely challenging conditions, says Camilli: the well's depth of 5,000 feet required robotic tools for examination or intervention, and enormous undersea pressures encouraged the formation of hydrate crystals, as a mix of oil, gas and other chemicals shot out of the pipe at high temperature, and mixed with much cooler water.

Through technological innovations, Camilli was able to measure the flow rate of this "multiphase fluid" as it spewed from the well. With specially rigged equipment, Camilli's team "listened" to fluid velocity, and imaged the flow with sonar, putting both kinds of measurements together to arrive at the volumetric flow rate. Camilli calculated a daily flow rate for oil from the well, and then its total output, and came up with a net leak of 4.2 million barrels. He also learned that oil from this deep reservoir contained a large fraction of gas, an important finding in terms of environmental impact.

While running this research, Camilli discovered a coherent "oil emulsion layer," a subsurface plume, which he was able to investigate nearly immediately due to a fast turnaround government grant. This time, Camilli deployed a NASA"designed, free"swimming, autonomous undersea device (AUV), which runs a preprogrammed mission then "swims to the surface and waits to be picked up." Using the AUV, Camilli tracked the plume "meandering along the continental shelf" at around 1,100 meters depth. While other researchers also noted the plume, Camilli's group "were able to characterize its spatial extent," and sampled oily water inside this two"kilometer wide, 200" meter thick and 35"kilometer long blob.

Camilli, aware of people denying the existence of the plume, says this AUV research "was pretty high stakes for us scientists. I didn't get a lot of sleep at night. I tried to think through, what did I miss, am I going out there and coming back with nothing, or with an indeterminate answer?" Most doubts have been laid to rest, with other researchers corroborating Camilli's findings, and his work published in Science. A larger satisfaction for Camilli involves his successful tests of novel ways to assess a spill in real"time. "We have shown that cutting"edge scientific methods can be applied for something that was a national emergency."

About the Speaker(s): Richard Camilli has worked at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution since 2001, as a research assistant, visiting investigator, postdoctoral scholar and assistant scientist. Previously, he was an instructor at MIT in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Camilli received the 2010 National Science Foundation CAREER Award, and is a winner in multiple years of the Green Technology Innovation Award. He recently delivered testimony before the President's National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling.

Description: Rich Wilson had followed the Vend_e Globe Race (around"the"world single"handed) since its inception in 1988 but had never considered sailing it himself-"too hard, too long, too dangerous, too risky, too, too, too, the boats were too big, the sails were too big."

Then he reconsidered the possibility when he realized he could incorporate the race into a school program using all the aspects of this global sailing event. As a former Boston Public School teacher, he still felt a strong connection to young students and was certain his 'sitesALIVE!' program could get kids excited about the adventure. "They'll pay attention if they don't know how it's going to turn out. The hardest thing about being a teacher is to get kids to pay attention."

And with that Wilson put together his plan to sail the Vend_e Globe in 2008"2009. He lined up newspapers from around the world to carry his story live as he was sailing The Great American III so his students could follow his journey. He put together a team of seventeen experts-maritime affairs, emergency medicine, tanker broker, sleep specialist among them-to complement his daily updates with their topics of particular interest. Having had asthma from the age of one, he wanted to show his "asthma constituency" how he managed his condition. And finally, he wanted to include seniors. "They weren't part of the constituency in previous programs, but they are now!" (Wilson was the oldest skipper at the age of 58 when he sailed the Vend_e Globe.)

Finally, with all the additional details required by the race itself-insurance, entry fees, previous sailing qualifications, medical approval, offshore emergency medicine training and more-behind him, he was set to start.

While modern technology makes this single"handed race possible, the story that holds your attention is the human one. In the annals of extreme sports-and the physical and emotional demands they make on an individual-sailing 28,000 miles for 17 weeks must surely be at the top. Only fifty skippers have circumnavigated the globe alone.

"Some people call the Vend_e Globe the Everest of the Seas, I'm trying to turn that around and say that Mt. Everest is really the Vend_e Globe of mountain climbing. Just to get a little respect for the sport."

In a narrative filled with details of his own moments of vulnerability and drama and those of his running mates, Wilson tells the spellbinding story of medical emergencies and boat dismastings, of those who returned to France and of those who had to drop out. While the Vend_e Globe may seem to be a sport about winning-coming in first-it is truly a sport about finishing and the tradition of camaraderie among mariners.

About the Speaker(s): Rich Wilson is currently the skipper of Great American III and founder of the interactive web based learning resource sitesALIVE!. Wilson has worked as a math teacher in Boston, a defense analyst in Washington, DC, and as technical consultant on power/desalination plants in Saudi Arabia. He was a successful investor in six entertainment companies in Massachusetts.

In 1980, Wilson became the youngest Overall Winner of the prestigious 605"mile Newport to Bermuda Race skippering Holger Danske. In 1988, he won his class sailing the 35"foot trimaran Curtana in the Carlsberg Singlehanded Transatlantic Race.

Believing that an ocean voyage would make an ideal event from which to create a "learning adventure," Wilson created the project Ocean Challenge in 1990. sitesALIVE! evolved from that original interactive teaching idea.

He and one shipmate tackled the clipper ship record set by Northern Light in 1853. Although his trimaran capsized just short of Cape Horn in 65"foot waves, both sailors were rescued by a giant New Zealand containership. The effect of bringing the real world into classroom learning was so effective that he decided to try for the record again.

Great American II left New York City for Melbourne, Australia, in September of 2001 in pursuit of the record passage time recorded by another great clipper ship Mandarin in 1853. Sailing down the Atlantic, around the Cape of Good Hope and across the vast Southern Ocean, Great American II broke the record by over a day in another adventure followed by tens of thousands of students.

In March 2003 Great American II departed Hong Kong for New York City, in an attempt to beat the speed record of the clipper ship Sea Witch along the China trade route. In 1848, Sea Witch set out from Hong Kong arriving in New York Harbor after 74 days 14 hours. Setting another record in May 2003, Wilson and his only crew member, Rich du Moulin, brought Great American II into New York Harbor after 72 days, 21 hours, 11 minutes, and 38 seconds.

Sailing the Great American III in 2008"2009, Wilson raced the Vend_e Globe-a round the"world single"handed yacht race, sailed non"stop and without assistance-coming in 9th after 121 days.

Wilson received an A.B. Degree in Mathematics from Harvard College, an S.M. in Interdisciplinary Science from MIT and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Description: If he doesn't have the whole world in his hands, Rafael Bras certainly grasps more pieces of the gigantic puzzle than most of us. Often credited with launching the science of hydrology -- the study of water's crucial role in Earth systems -- Bras has developed passions for pretty much the rest of the Earth sciences as well. In this fond, valedictory lecture to MIT (he's recently taken the post of Dean of Engineering at UC Irvine), Bras describes some of the research problems that have long fascinated him.

Bras enjoys wrapping his mind around big things, such as the size of the world's oceans, whose numbers are in the billions of cubic kilometers. What interests Bras even more are the ways huge amounts of water cycle from the atmosphere as rain, into the soil, as runoff to the sea, and back again. He says "a lot of what we depend on is the result of differences between large numbers. It is those differences between very large numbers that makes it so uncertain, variable and so sensitive to our intervention or changes."

The physics behind the various water cycles involves vast and continuous transfers of energy: rain changes soil moisture, which changes the amount of radiation the earth reflects, which affects evaporation, which changes the convection potential energy, which impacts cloudiness, which leads again to rain. It's a "very nonlinear, very interacting cycle," says Bras, which is "elegant and quite pretty." Bras helped lay out the models for these cycles. His studies describe how nature seems to prefer extremes like flood and drought, and how in river basins all over the world, nature favors fractal organization and minimal energy expenditure.

Other observation and modeling projects may have consequences for the future of the planet: A nine"year study of an Amazon region that sampled cloud cover from a satellite every three hours demonstrated that deforested regions produce shallow clouds less likely to produce rain, while deeply forested regions generate deep clouds. He has been captivated for the last 10 years by "the intertwined dance between vegetation, landscape hydrology and radiation," how soil moisture accommodates certain kinds of plants, which then change the properties of soil, which changes the drainage capability of water, which over time alters entire landscapes. Concludes Bras, "This beautiful trip through hydrology has been made exciting by all these things I did not know, which came through the exercise of research, trying things and finding things. It is all a result of chance and necessity; things adjust themselves."

About the Speaker(s): Rafael L. Bras recently became Dean of the School of Engineering at U.C. Irvine, after 32 years on the MIT faculty. He came to MIT as a freshman, and earned his graduate degrees at MIT as well, joining the faculty in 1976. He has served as Chair of the MIT Faculty, and head of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department.

Bras has worked for many government and private institutions, including the Engineering Directorate, National Science Foundation; and the Board of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate, National Research Council. He served as chairman of the Earth Systems Sciences and Applications Committee of NASA, as well as the NASA Advisory Committee.

Bras is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and is an elected fellow of the AAAS and AMS, among other organizations. He currently chairs a panel of experts supervising the design of a multibillion dollar project to protect Venice from floods. He has also advanced ideas about the impact of deforestation in the Amazon on regional and continental climates.

Description: These legal, environmental and policy experts don't converge on a dominant strategy for saving whales, but make the case in their own ways that we are fast approaching a moment of no return for the great cetaceans, and quite possibly the oceans we all rely on.

"Every time you take a piece out of the ocean without knowing what you're doing, you're creating future problems," says Robin Craig . With whaling and current fishing practices, we simply don't know what we're losing in terms of biodiversity and larger ecosystem functioning. Craig is also concerned about the Navy's use of lower frequency sonar, and the decade of litigation that in one case ended up in the Supreme Court.

Jeremy Firestone has investigated the physics of shipstrikes on whales, looking at whether speed or mass are most important in determining damage. This is particularly important where the endangered right whale is concerned. Firestone is trying to determine quantitatively how particular strategies, such as slowing down ships, or shifting vessel routes, might reduce these destructive encounters, and which might be more acceptable to the different stakeholders.

Alison Rieser discusses the current gnarled politics of the IWC. Japan exploits a loophole in a global whaling moratorium to take hundreds of Antarctic and Pacific whales, arguing that populations permit sustainable catch quotas. Other countries vehemently oppose this whaling, and are trying to modernize the IWC, to make it address near and long"range threats to cetaceans. Rieser wonders if, under U.S. leadership, the IWC "can be salvaged" in order to take collective action "around climate change and the other proximate causes of whale demise."

Don Anton assumes at the outset that "dysfunctionality won't go away" in world whaling politics. He looks in particular at Australia's efforts to end Japanese whaling by establishing a whale sanctuary off Antarctica. Anton doesn't believe this unilateral approach will work. "I come at this (conclusion) awkwardly and uncomfortably" as a "tree"hugger," he admits. Instead, he thinks Australia and New Zealand should plead the whales' case before an international tribunal.

"I think whaling should stop absolutely," says Max Strahan. We have an ecosystemic relationship to them, he says, and the fact we're killing whales symbolizes our destruction of the oceans as well. The reason why the treaties don't work, he says, is that "under the real law that matters, whales are still fish," managed like hunted animals, and under this paradigm, there's no possibility of saving them. Strahan wants the end of commercial whaling and of the IWC, and demands environmental reviews of fisheries.

About the Speaker(s): Doug Fraser is an award"winning environmental reporter for the Cape Cod Times. He has covered commercial fishing and other maritime issues for 14 years.

Host(s): Vice President Research, MIT Sea Grant College Program

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Thu, 15 Dec 2011 13:37:16 -0500http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/16484-20-ton-canaries-the-great-whales-of-the-north-atlantic-panel
http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/16484-20-ton-canaries-the-great-whales-of-the-north-atlantic-panel
20"Ton Canaries: The Great Whales of the North Atlantic (panel)
MIT World — special events and lectures 20"Ton Canaries: The Great Whales of the North Atlantic (Keynote)
Eric Jay Dolin, Ph.D. '95, Author: Leviathan: A History of Whaling in America; Michael Moore, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Description: This two"part lecture provides a brief illustrated journey through our whaling past, and the heart"breaking current story of the North Atlantic right whale.

Using many slides, author Eric Jay Dolin recaps highlights from his recent book, Leviathan. Among the tidbits, we learn that Captain John Smith (of Jamestown fame) came to Maine and Massachusetts in 1614 to hunt for whales (with a sideline in gold and silver). It was a bust, like some of his other ventures. The next settlers had more luck, harvesting dead whales that drifted ashore. Through the next century, colonists mastered offshore whaling, and ultimately more than half the income New England earned from selling products to England was derived from whales.

With breaks during the American Revolution and the War of 1812, New Englanders built up the whaling industry steadily: By 1846, there were 735 American whaling ships (out of 900 worldwide) earning 70,000 people their living. $70 million was invested in whaling infrastructure, and 60 coastal cities and towns rose from whale harvesting. It was the fifth largest industry in the U.S., providing the clean"burning candles favored by Ben Franklin and baleen for ladies' hoops and stays.

It was also a dangerous, bloody and stinking vocation, involving years at sea, death by fin or rope, and hours over a boiling rendering vat. Populations of whales sank drastically, and whalers searched farther for their prey. West Coast whalers chased bowheads into the Arctic and were trapped by ice. Ultimately, the American whaling industry "sailed into oblivion" with the discovery of oil in Titusville, PA, the Civil War, and the evaporation of the baleen"based corset market _ done in by new Paris fashions.

The tiny, remaining population of North Atlantic right whales _ perhaps 350 -- is known to researchers "better than any other mammal in the world," says Michael Moore. Their continued existence depends on our "walking a tightrope between commerce and conservation." Perhaps this individual knowledge adds to the poignancy of his account: Whales tracked and photographed since they were babies are spotted now with fishing rig wrapped around their fins, or hack marks cut into their bodies by ship propellers.

The "trajectory" for these animals does not look good: from 1986 to 2005, biologists counted 50 dead right whales. This does not include those animals that simply sank out of sight after they died. Moore is quietly indignant: death by fishing rope constriction is awful, lasting for months in some cases. "There's the conservation piece," he says, "and the extreme animal welfare issue." There's also the matter of deteriorating habitat and dwindling food supply, toxic contaminants, and noise.

The only hope for these creatures lies in measures that reduce the chances that whales get fouled in fishing gear, and that slow down boats in the lanes favored by whales up and down the East Coast. More mitigation must be done to achieve animal welfare and sustainable global ecology while satisfying human needs, maintains Moore.

About the Speaker(s): Eric Jay Dolin originally wanted to be a marine biologist when he left for college, specifically a seashell scientist. At Brown, he turned toward the field of environmental policy, and worked as a fisheries policy analyst at the National Marine Fisheries Service after graduating. He also worked for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and as an environmental consultant. He was an intern at the National Wildlife Federation, and at the U.S. Senate. He has written a variety of books, and more than 60 articles for magazines, journals and newspapers.

Dolin earned his B.A. and B.S. from Brown University; a Masters of Environmental Management from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies; and a Ph.D. from MIT.
Michael Moore earned his M.A. from Cambridge University in 1979, in Veterinary Sciences, and his
M.B., M.R.C.V.S., also from Cambridge University, in 1983, in Clinical Veterinary Medicine. He received a
Ph.D. from the MIT/WHOI Joint Program, in 1991,in Biological Oceanography.

Moore's research focuses on the interaction between humans and marine vertebrates, especially marine mammals: sharp and blunt trauma from ships, chronic trauma from fishing gear, toxicants, habitat quality, and infectious diseases.
With support from the NOAA Prescott Program, Moore's group undertakes diagnostic necropsies of marine mammal mortalities found on the beaches of Cape Cod. They are building an understanding of the various factors that contribute to these mortalities.

Description: "The numbers are overwhelming," Henry Jacoby tells us in his overview of the final forum panel. The U.S. consumes one"quarter of the world's energy and emits one"quarter of the world's carbon dioxide. The combined population of India and China is nine times that of the U.S., so what will happen as they approach our level of energy consumption? Responses to this challenge, which must be on an enormous scale, should be weighed with great care.

As large"scale energy solutions emerge, Ronald Prinn insists that we carefully examine impacts on the environment. Using the tool of integrated global system modelling, it will be more possible to assess both the environmental and economic viability of solutions, individually and in aggregate. One area that must be improved, Prinn says, is climate forecasting, with a particular focus on the ocean's role in global warming. This will be "vital to choosing among energy options and adapting to inevitable future climate change."

Buildings play a surprisingly large role in energy consumption, Leon Glicksman reports. In the U.S., the amount of energy used in buildings is 40% greater than in the transportation sector. "It's the biggest gorilla in the room," says Glicksman. Since the lifetimes of buildings can approach the century mark, it pays to find ways of improving their energy use. Key to bringing down the costs of heating, cooling, lighting and ventilation, says Glicksman, is opening buildings up to fresh air, light, and sun. Conserving energy and finding efficiencies require "integrating design functions into buildings from day one," he concludes.

John Heywood wants to be "realistic AND positive" about energy savings in transportation. As the number of vehicles in the world rises from around 800 million to 2 billion in 2050, the amount of petroleum consumed will go up as well. Heywood has some ideas for reducing gas consumption to offset this dizzying increase in vehicle numbers, including: increased vehicle occupancy and public transportation use; more efficient transportation systems; and increased use of alternative fuels and hybrid vehicles. If we can make small dents in a variety of areas, we might well make an impact on transportation energy use overall. While it may appear "simple"minded, it should give us hope," says Heywood.

In her study of coal production in China, Karen Polenske has discovered that changes in coke oven technology have led to reductions in energy use. The Chinese continue to look for new energy technologies to reduce energy use and pollution, including putting hoods on plants, and closing some and relocating other facilities as part of a plan to create energy efficient zones. They also try to make the plants pleasant for workers with park" like settings, says Polenske. While "we can't do it for them," says Polenske, "we need to work with them."

What kind of energy concerns have the billions of people in the world who live on less than two dollars a day, and survive by using cow dung, wood and charcoal for cooking? Amy Smith says that indoor cooking fires cause one million deaths a year in children and that harvesting firewood has led to massive deforestation in some regions. To address this persistent problem, Smith has invented a clean burning charcoal, made from inexpensive materials readily available in many developing countries, like 55" gallon oil drums, sugar cane residue and cassava root. "This is probably one of the simplest technologies you've heard about," says Smith, "but it can have an immediate and significant impact on the lives of millions."

Description: William Green frames this round"up of near"term pressing issues in energy research with a sobering observation: global demand for energy will increase 50% by 2025, because "most of the world wants to live like us." The panel reports on five different domains of research to meet this demand, ranging over science, engineering, economics, and politics.

Nuclear energy is making a comeback, as the fastest growing energy source during the past 15 years. That's because existing plants are operating better, says Mujid Kazimi, and because the regulatory process has become more predictable. But plenty of challenges remain: enhancing safety, by making nuclear plants less dependent on their operators; improving efficiency; disposing of waste, without the kind of political firestorm sparked by Yucca Mountain; and improving security, i.e., not proliferating weapons"grade materials.

In contrast, Robert van der Hilst calls hydrocarbons _ oil and gas _ the "black sheep" of the present"day energy family. Research is concentrating on making it less expensive to extract oil from existing fields, and more feasible to drill in new ones, including under the ocean. Solving these subsurface problems will depend increasingly on remote sensing, coupled with modeling and simulation. MIT projects using GPS satellites, robotics, and nanotechnology illustrate the essential collaboration of scientists and engineers.

Modeling and simulation, along with computer graphics to visualize results, are also the keys to making bold advances in exploiting the energy sources we already have. We may not like using coal and other low"quality fuels, Ahmed Ghoniem warns, but they are cheap and plentiful, and advanced conversion technologies will make them even harder to resist. The research challenges here are much faster computer hardware, supported by parallel processing software and immersive virtual reality displays. These devices, linked with interdisciplinary simulation techniques, will make it possible, for example, to predict both the fluid dynamics and aerodynamics of a giant wind turbine floating offshore.

The biggest change on the energy landscape since the 1990s, though, may be deregulation. Today, Paul Joskow claims, anyone can build a plant to generate electricity, and anyone can sell electricity to consumers. What is the impact of this industry restructuring on the theoretical function and practical performance of electricity markets? Joskow studies this and related issues, such as how to make remaining regulation more performance"oriented, and how "cap and trade" systems might satisfy environmental regulations.

Political scientist Stephen Ansolabehere uses polling to find out what energy sources the American public wants to develop. Support for nuclear energy, which plummeted after the accident at Three Mile Island, is now rising. The dilemma, however, is that people do not want to pay for clean energy: gas and electricity taxes, for example, are always politically unpopular. Ansolabehere is now investigating whether income or payroll tax decreases would make increased energy taxes more acceptable to voters.

Description: If you'd asked Ronald Prinn a decade ago whether human activity played a significant part in global warming, he would have given you an "equivocal" answer. Today, he is no longer straddling the line, and indeed, has amassed forceful evidence that post"industrial society has brought about enormous change in earth systems, and may cause irreparable damage as this century progresses.

Prinn provides a short lesson on radiative forcing -- the process by which the earth absorbs solar radiation and gives off energy by emitting infrared radiation. These processes, which should be in balance, increasingly are not, due to manmade activities that trap the heat from the sun, and drive up the earth's temperature. Prinn comes armed with MIT's Integrated Global System Model, which helps show how human industry, agriculture and consumption feed into the delicate, interconnected physical and biological workings of atmosphere, ocean and earth. Forecasting the climate into the future, says Prinn, "is no longer a job for the natural sciences, but for a combination of natural and social sciences."

Prinn's illustrations depicting how human activity and earth systems interact are almost comically complex, and he acknowledges that his models must take into account major uncertainties. Clouds, ocean mixing and aerosols act as wild cards in terms of radiative forcing. However, observation of earth's climate over millennia, and the running of computer simulations hundreds of times, have yielded some probabilities that Prinn believes policy makers must contend with.

Even assuming that civilization can limit its carbon dioxide emissions to twice preindustrial levels (550 parts per million), some very dramatic shifts will happen (or have already begun): the poles will heat up much faster than other parts of the world, melting ice and raising sea levels. Arctic tundra and soil will thaw and release methane, a much more potent greenhouse gas even than carbon dioxide. Another possibility: The ocean will reach its limit in absorbing atmospheric CO2, and, to put it bluntly, begin to die.

There are things we can and should do, says Prinn, if we want to avoid playing roulette with life on earth, and these actions are not priced beyond our means. We can make our transportation and building energy costs more efficient. We can continue to use coal if we figure out how to capture and store carbon underground. We'll need to develop biofuels. Bills in Congress seeking to achieve 50"80% reductions in carbon emissions below 1990 levels won't cripple our economy, Prinn's models show. "Bottom line, we can afford this."

About the Speaker(s): Ronald Prinn's research interests incorporate the chemistry, dynamics, and physics of the atmospheres of the Earth and other planets, and the chemical evolution of atmospheres. He is currently involved in a wide range of projects in atmospheric chemistry and biogeochemistry, planetary science, climate science, and integrated assessment of science and policy regarding climate change.

He leads the Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment (AGAGE), in which the rates of change of the concentrations of the trace gases involved in the greenhouse effect and ozone depletion have been measured continuously over the globe for the past two decades. He is pioneering the use of inverse methods, which use such measurements and three"dimensional models to determine trace gas emissions and understand atmospheric chemical processes, especially those processes involving the oxidation capacity of the atmosphere. Prinn is also working extensively with social scientists to link the science and policy aspects of global change. He has made significant contributions to the development of national and international scientific research programs in global change.

Prinn is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), a recipient of AGU's Macelwane Medal, and a Fellow of the AAAS. He co"authored Planets and their Atmospheres: Origin and Evolution, and edited Global Atmospheric"Biospheric Chemistry. Prinn received his Sc.D. in 1971 from MIT; and his M.S. and B.S. from the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

Description: Downward swooping lines on the graphs say it all: The world's fish populations, and hence its fisheries, are collapsing. Daniel Pauly has analyzed reams of data -- including number of boats fishing, their reported catch, the amount of fish thrown overboard -- from every significant fishing area of the world over 50"plus years, and has concluded that today, 30% of our fisheries have crashed, and that by 2048, if the trend continues, most will have disappeared.

This dismal turn of events comes courtesy of rampant over fishing, as well as wantonly wasteful fishing methods, says Pauly. Trawling rigs with miles of bottom"scraping nets may yield tons of desirable table fish, but also tons of byproduct-fish that don't bring as much in the market. These get tossed overboard. In the early 90s, according to Pauly, 30 million tons of fish -- fully 1/4 of the world's catch" -- was discarded. Improvements in technology such as GPS have only made matters worse.

There's little awareness of the magnitude of the problem among Western countries, because there's no sign of it in supermarkets, with fish department displays still spilling over. That's because Europe and America have moved south for their fish, says Pauly. Europe is now plying the waters off Africa, leaving Guinea"Bissau, for instance, with only 7% of its fish. Americans increasingly eat South American and Asian fish. "The only place with no massive depletion is Brunei," says Pauly, because "the Sultan doesn't want boats between his oil wells."

This collapse isn't just a matter for fish eaters. As the top"paying table fish disappear, humans begin "fishing down the marine food web," taking immature fish, and the fish that are prey to other species. Trawling in these already ecologically disturbed waters churns up sediment and takes out bottom dwelling fish, invertebrates and corals, which are essential to a healthy marine system. Biomass disappears, leaving dead zones. These ecosystems are primarily good for jellyfish and harmful algal blooms, says Pauly. The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico is already the size of the state of Delaware.

Asked what fish it's alright to eat, Pauly recommends chicken. In fact, he doesn't believe "it's an issue that can be fixed by private initiatives." Effective action would mean eliminating fuel and other subsidies from the world's fisheries, and permitting only small scale fisheries that engage in sustainable harvesting. But even this may not save certain species from extinction, as global warming pressures the world's remaining fish species.

About the Speaker(s): Daniel Pauly became a professor at UBC's Fisheries Centre in 1994, after many years at the International Centre for Living Aquatic Resource Management (ICLARM), then in Manila, Philippines. Pauly has authored or co"authored more than 500 scientific articles, book chapters and shorter contributions, and authored, or (co") edited about 30 books and reports. Two books, On the Sex of Fishes and the Gender of Scientist: A Collection of Essays in Fisheries Science (Chapman and Hall, 1994) and "M_thodes pour l'_valuation des ressources halieutiques (C_padu s"Editions, 1997) summarize much previous work, as do his articles "Fishing Down Marine Food Webs" (Science, February 6, 1998), and "Toward Sustainability in World Fisheries," (Nature, August 8, 2002). Two other books, In a Perfect Ocean: Fisheries and Ecosystem in the North Atlantic (Island Press, 2003); and Darwin's Fishes: An Encyclopedia of Ichthyology, Ecology and Evolution (Cambridge University Press, 2004) document his current interests.

In 2001, he was awarded the Murray Newman Award for Excellence in Marine Conservation Research, sponsored by the Vancouver Aquarium, and the Oscar E. Sette Award of the Marine Fisheries Section, American Fisheries Society. He was named a 'Honorarprofessor 'at Kiel University, Germany in late 2002. In 2003, he was named one of UBC's Distinguished University Scholars and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (Academy of Science). In 2004, he received the Roger Revelle Medal from IOC/UNESCO, and the Award of Excellence of the American Fisheries Society.

Pauly received his Master (1974), Doctorate (1979) and 'Habilitation' (1985) in Fisheries Biology and Biological Oceanography from the University of Kiel, Germany.

Host(s): School of Science, Center for Global Change Science

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Wed, 14 Dec 2011 14:40:08 -0500http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/16306-fisheries-and-global-warming-impacts-on-marine-ecosystems-and-food-security
http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/16306-fisheries-and-global-warming-impacts-on-marine-ecosystems-and-food-security
Fisheries and Global Warming: Impacts on Marine Ecosystems and Food Security
MIT World — special events and lectures Electrons, Life and the Evolution of the Oxygen Cycle on Earth
Paul G. Falkowski, Board of Governors Professor of Geological and Marine Science in the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences and Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Rutgers University

Description: Peeling away billions of years of the Earth's history, Paul Falkowski reveals how our watery and rocky world underwent a massive transformation to become oxygen"rich and biologically diverse. He elucidates the complex geochemical and geophysical processes underlying the "Story of O" _ how oxygen made its appearance on the planet.
While scientists know that photosynthesis is responsible for the air we breathe, "We don't understand how the reaction fundamentally works," says Falkowski. "It's one of the most enigmatic electron transfer reactions in biology." Just splitting water "doesn't give you free oxygen on the planet. " Yet somehow, on an almost unimaginable timescale, organisms with the help of the sun have been producing atmospheric oxygen, and that oxygen is in equilibrium with other gases.
Falkowski's explanation for this alchemy involves the Wilson Cycle, where silica"rich rocks thick with organic matter get pushed up from the ocean onto land. This process, which probably first occurred three billion years ago, enabled the evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis, says Falkowski. By means of "mass independent fractionation of sulfur isotopes," the creation of ozone, and nitrogen fixing, the Earth witnessed "a great oxidation event" around 2.3 billion years ago, triggering a shift from anaerobic to an aerobic environment in the oceans.
Suddenly (geologically speaking), the conditions were ripe for life. In Falkowski's words, this was the "big flip." The right ocean chemistries encouraged the emergence of primitive biological cycles. Ocean"based bacteria and other simple life forms developed the photosynthetic machinery for feeding themselves, generating oxygen and recycling nitrogen and phosphorus. In the last 200 million years, oxygen production climbed, leading to a proliferation of life forms. The rise of large placental mammals can be seen as the "evolutionary consequence of the rise of oxygen," says Falkowski.
But the delicately balanced metabolic processes on which life depends are now moving out of equilibrium, he says. "In the last 150 years, humans have extracted huge amounts of buried organic matter and consumed it at unprecedented rates in recent geological memory. The result is a change in temperature of the Earth and atmospheric concentrations of CO2." The glaciers are going. Falkowski sees a faint hope for the planet if humans can figure out how to scale up such biochemical reactions as hydrogen generation from the splitting of water or creation of fuels from cellulose.

About the Speaker(s): Paul G. Falkowski studied biology at the City College of the City University of New York (B.S. and M.A.) and obtained a Ph. D. in Biology and Biophysics at the University of British Columbia, Canada in 1975. Soon afterwards, he became Senior Scientist at the Brookhaven National Laboratory and Adjunct Professor at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. He served as Head of Oceanographic Sciences Division, Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1987"1991. In 1998 he joined Rutgers University as a professor at the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences and at the Department of Geology.

Falkowski has researched phytoplankton both in culture and in the field. This approach allows photosynthesis to be surveyed over large temporal and spatial scales. He has shed light on the influence of the oceans on the primary production of the biosphere.
He has advised NASA, the Department of Energy, and the Office of Naval Research.

Falkowski is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and has been a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow.

Host(s): School of Science, Center for Global Change Science

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Wed, 14 Dec 2011 14:37:27 -0500http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/16303-electrons-life-and-the-evolution-of-the-oxygen-cycle-on-earth
http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/16303-electrons-life-and-the-evolution-of-the-oxygen-cycle-on-earth
Electrons, Life and the Evolution of the Oxygen Cycle on Earth
MIT World — special events and lectures Advancements in Underwater Vehicles: Responding to Current Environmental Issues
James Morash, '01, MNG '08, Research Engineer, MIT Seagrant Program

Description: Even if humans could breathe under water like fish, we might not want to become permanently aquatic. -Believe it or not," says James Morash , -the deep ocean is kind of boring," covered as it is by so much sandy sea floor. And yet there's much to be learned about this terrain, which was a mystery to humans up 'til the last century. As Morash points out, ocean systems are increasingly of interest to climate change scientists, and to researchers interested in the impacts of warming on marine ecosystems.

It has proved too dangerous and expensive, Morash tells us, to send humans inside submersibles to carry out much of this painstaking and time-consuming underwater research, so engineers have been designing vehicles that can do much of the work in our stead. The first generation of such vehicles required cables for power and commands from the surface, and with cameras and lights, were -not much more than flying eyeballs." The cables proved a major limitation, constraining the vehicles operating scope and getting in the way in rough seas.

Morash and his colleagues have been cooking up a new generation of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), which resemble the rovers operating on Mars. They're fitted out with batteries, acoustic telemetry, and on board computers. -What you have is a vehicle that is happy to drive above the sea floor for hours at a time, taking endless photos of bare sand until it happens across something more exciting like a deep water coral reef or a shipwreck." Applications for AUVs include essential, drudge missions like taking water quality samples over a wide patch of ocean, at different depths, or remote monitoring of coral reefs for decay and seasonal changes. The oil industry uses AUVs for maintaining offshore oil rigs. The Navy has requested an AUV that might serve as a disaster response platform in case of a flood, to test a watershed for -spreading pollution plumes" or to identify other waterborne hazards. And Morash's colleagues are testing another AUV in the MIT alumni pool that is designed to dive quickly down to coral communities that serve as fish nurseries, places so deep that life is based not on sunlight but on chemosynthesis.

About the Speaker(s): Jim Morash has worked as a research engineer in the MIT Sea Grant College Program's Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Laboratory since the summer of 2001. In his six and a half years as a member of the AUV Lab engineering team, Morash has worked on the design, construction, testing, and field deployment of a wide variety of marine robots, including deep diving unmanned submersibles for underwater archaeology, low-cost autonomous surface craft for disaster response and environmental monitoring, and small hybrid ROV/AUVs designed for shallow-water inspection and monitoring of man-made structures and coral reefs.

Morash joined the AUV Lab engineering team just after graduating from MIT (BS EECS '01), and recently went back to school part-time to finish his M.Eng. degree (EECS '08), studying high speed acoustic communications under the sponsorship of the Chevron-MIT University Partnership Program. Publications, and the latest updates on marine robotics projects at MIT, are available at the AUV Lab web site:
http://auvlab.mit.edu

Description: When Ron Prinn spins one -Wheel of Fortune," he arrives at a one in four chance of the Earth warming up at least 3 degrees centigrade, and the beginning of an irreversible melting of polar ice sheets. When he spins the other wheel, the odds of this level of dangerous warming fall to one in 40. The first wheel, Prinn suggests, represents the risks involved in doing nothing about climate change. The second wheel is attainable only by enacting a climate policy that stabilizes carbon dioxide levels in the near future.
Prinn arrives at this casino scenario by way of an enormously complex climate model, the Integrated Global System Model (IGSM), which takes into account manmade and natural activities forcing climate change, to generate a -probability range of forecasts." Data come from measuring variables in the atmosphere, ocean, and land ecosystems, as well as from human emissions. GDP, energy use, policy costs, agricultural and health impacts get factored in as well.
Research using 400-thousand-year-old ice samples shows that while temperatures and greenhouse gases have fluctuated, the temperatures today are the highest in the last 1200 years. 1998 and 2005 were the warmest years ever recorded. Given the current rise in carbon dioxide levels, polar regions are warming up at much faster rates than other parts of the world, which will exacerbate warming. As ocean ice melts, there's less sunlight reflected back and more heat trapped at the poles; tundra thawing will release more gases as well. There are feedbacks in the system: small changes in gases such as methane can trigger very rapid changes in temperature.
Prinn admits to big uncertainties in the IGSM: clouds, which play a large role, are difficult to model. There are also uncertainties about emissions, and ocean-mixing, the churning of cooler and warmer waters, which can bring carbon buried on the ocean floor to the surface. Prinn's caveat is -never seriously believe any single forecast of the climate going into the future." However, by running the IGSM hundreds of thousands of times to estimate the probability of various amounts of climate change, Prinn and colleagues are, -in the Monte Carlo sense, building up a set of forecasts on which we can put a measure of the odds of being correct or incorrect."
If we want better odds, we'll need to prevent any major increase in carbon dioxide emissions from current levels (and no more than twice preindustrial levels). This is a tall order, given the growth of developing countries and the anemic response by the U.S. and other countries to the gathering crisis. Prinn adds to this dismal picture, noting that new energy solutions must permit scaling up on a global basis. -To get three terawatts out of windmills, you'd need 21 million of the current-style windmills." Solutions that look good on a small scale -may be going in the wrong direction on a large scale."

About the Speaker(s): Ronald Prinn's research interests incorporate the chemistry, dynamics, and physics of the atmospheres of the Earth and other planets, and the chemical evolution of atmospheres. He is currently involved in a wide range of projects in atmospheric chemistry and biogeochemistry, planetary science, climate science, and integrated assessment of science and policy regarding climate change.

He leads the Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment (AGAGE), in which the rates of change of the concentrations of the trace gases involved in the greenhouse effect and ozone depletion have been measured continuously over the globe for the past two decades. He is pioneering the use of inverse methods, which use such measurements and three-dimensional models to determine trace gas emissions and understand atmospheric chemical processes, especially those processes involving the oxidation capacity of the atmosphere. Prinn is also working extensively with social scientists to link the science and policy aspects of global change. He has made significant contributions to the development of national and international scientific research programs in global change.

Prinn is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), a recipient of AGU's Macelwane Medal, and a Fellow of the AAAS. He co-authored Planets and their Atmospheres: Origin and Evolution, and edited Global Atmospheric-Biospheric Chemistry. Prinn received his Sc.D. in 1971 from MIT; and his M.S. and B.S. from the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

Host(s): Office of the President, Energy Research Council

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Tue, 13 Dec 2011 18:44:15 -0500http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/16204-climate-and-energy-uncertainties-in-forecasts-and-the-problems-of-scale
http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/16204-climate-and-energy-uncertainties-in-forecasts-and-the-problems-of-scale
Climate and Energy: Uncertainties in Forecasts and the Problems of Scale
MIT World — special events and lectures The Invisible Forest: Microbes in the Sea
Sallie Chisholm, Lee and Geraldine Martin Professor of Environmental Studies and Professor of Biology, MIT

Description: After listening to Penny Chisholm, you'll view pond scum or aquarium slime in a different light. In fact, Chisholm aims to instill a sense of reverence and concern for the organisms behind this phenomenon, which turn out to be blue-green algae. They're part of a family of microbes called phytoplanktons that are essential to the earth's health.
Chisholm sketches the history of phytoplanktons, which first emerged on earth 3.5 billion years ago, and created the oxygen in our atmosphere that made possible all other plant and animal life. -They can live perfectly well without us," says Chisholm, -but we can't live without them." Energized by sunlight, phytoplankton are the ultimate recyclers. Chisholm's research focus, Prochlorococcus, discovered in 1985, plays a supremely important role in climate control. The smallest and most abundant photosynthetic cell on the planet, it takes carbon from the atmosphere and deposits it safely to the ocean floor.
We must stop viewing all microbes as bad guys, Chisholm says, and instead, start to worry about the collective health of the organisms that regulate the world's metabolism. Those hard at work clearing our air of global warming gases may not fare so well as the earth heats up. When ocean temperatures rise, Chisholm says, waters get more stratified, and this may make photosynthesis more difficult for the microbes. There are proposed attempts to manipulate or work around phytoplanktons _ such as ocean fertilization or deep-sea injection of CO2 _ but Chisholm is deeply skeptical. We may end up sucking oxygen out of the water and creating dead zones in the ocean -that release methane, nitrous oxide and other wonderful greenhouse gases that molecule for molecule, prove more powerful than CO2 in absorbing solar energy," she warns.
Science has only just begun to study the world's microorganisms. Just .1% of all microbes have been cultured, and who knows what other kinds of unique and essential properties we'll find when we start looking, says Chisholm. It's time we begin -to build the knowledge necessary to predict, regulate and sustain these vital functions of earth systems for future generations," she says.

About the Speaker(s): In addition to her other appointments, Penny Chisholm currently serves as co-director of Terrascope, an MIT learning community for freshmen. She is also a visiting scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. From 1988-1995, she served as the MIT Director of the MIT/Woods Hole Joint Program in Oceanography.

Chisholm received the 2005 Huntsman Award for Excellence in Marine Science, and is a Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Investigator in Marine Science. She has published papers in PNAS and Nature. She received her Ph.D. in Biology in 1974 from S.U.N.Y. Albany.

Host(s): Office of the Provost, MIT Museum

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Tue, 13 Dec 2011 15:33:19 -0500http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/16178-the-invisible-forest-microbes-in-the-sea
http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/16178-the-invisible-forest-microbes-in-the-sea
The Invisible Forest: Microbes in the Sea
MIT World — special events and lectures The Role of New Technologies in a Sustainable Energy Economy
Daniel Nocera, The Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy and Professor of Chemistry; ; ; ; Angela Belcher, Germeshausen Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, and Biological Engineering

Description:
No single new technology can deliver limitless and clean energy, but Daniel Nocera and Angela Belcher are optimistic that they can harness the physical and natural worlds to move toward this goal.
Belcher looks to ancient ocean organisms for her inspiration. The biocomposite materials that make up abalone shells or diatoms, which evolved over millions of years, are durable and exquisitely designed at the nano level. Belcher poses an -interesting question: Why didn't the organism make other materials, like solar cells, batteries, or traditional fuel cells? ....We say, they haven't had the opportunity yet, let's give them the opportunity."
Her goal is to engineer these organisms so that their DNA codes for the synthesis of an efficient battery or solar cell, for instance. -It seems crazy," admits Belcher, but she points to a photo of her son, to whom she's passed on the genetic information that's given rise to his flesh and bones. Why not take the same principles and direct a microorganism to construct itself into a useful machine, Belcher suggests. -With the right ingredients, it would assemble itself," she says. Using natural materials would ensure -environment-friendly processing" that produces little waste. Indeed, the yeasts used in beer could -brew semiconductors for solar cells as well,' says Belcher.
-What will be the oil of the future, my Nirvana?" asks Daniel Nocera. The answer is deceptively simple: water plus light. Nocera is trying to emulate plants, which story the energy of sunlight: -Every time you eat a green leafy vegetable, you're literally chewing photons of the sun, releasing photons of the sun." Nocera -does artificial photosynthesis", which he believes -our future has to evolve to."
The challenge lies in how to capture and convert the energy created by splitting water with sunlight. Nocera says -We don't know how to make photovoltaics cheaply," but we must learn quickly.
Right now humans globally require 13 trillion watts (or terawatts) of power. By 2050, we'll need 28 terawatts. Nocera pokes holes in some hypothetical scenarios offered to achieve this objective. If you gave over every square inch of cropland on the face of the earth to biomass production, you'd only get 7 additional terawatts. Plus, -you couldn't eat anymore." You'd still need to add 8,000 nuclear power plants, by building a new plant every 1.6 days for the next 45 years; put wind turbines everywhere; and dam every available river, to approach the 28 terawatt goal.
These technologies don't scale up realistically, says Nocera, so we must look to the sun, which in one hour puts out as much energy as humans use during an entire year.

About the Speaker(s): In 2006, Angela Belcher was named 2006 Research Leader of the Year and a member of the Scientific American 50," the magazine's annual list of individuals, teams, companies and other organizations whose accomplishments demonstrate outstanding technological leadership. Belcher was recognized for "the use of custom-evolved viruses to advance nanotechnology," according to the magazine.

Belcher won a MacArthur Fellowship Award in 2004 and has also received the Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering (2000), and the Du Pont Young Investigators Award (1999).

Prior to MIT, Belcher was an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Texas, Austin. She received her B.S. in 1991 from the University of California, Santa Barbara and her Ph.D. from the same institution in 1997.
In 2005, Daniel Nocera was awarded the Italgas Prize, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Nocera has received the American Institute of Chemists Award, and was appointed a Presidential Young Investigator and an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow.

He serves on the Editorial Boards of Accounts of Chemical Research, Inorganic Chemistry, Journal of the American Chemical Society and Comments in Inorganic Chemistry. He was the inaugural Editor of Inorganic Chemistry Communications.

Nocera received his B.S. in 1970 from Rutgers University, and his Ph.D. from CalTech in 1984. He joined MIT in 1997.

Host(s): Office of the Provost, MIT Museum

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Tue, 13 Dec 2011 15:29:35 -0500http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/16176-the-role-of-new-technologies-in-a-sustainable-energy-economy
http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/16176-the-role-of-new-technologies-in-a-sustainable-energy-economy
The Role of New Technologies in a Sustainable Energy Economy
MIT World — special events and lectures What Does Current Scientific Research Have to Say About the Present and Future Risks Associated with Hurricanes?
Kerry Emanuel, '76, PhD '78, Professor of Atmospheric Science

Description: As the costs of Hurricane Katrina continue to spiral higher -- to date, $125 billion in damages and 1,200 deaths _ there's keen interest in perfecting the science of hurricane forecasting. The insurance industry in particular has a big stake in learning where and how the next big one is likely to hit. The problem is that traditional methods of statistical analysis, relying on previous landfalling storms, only go so far in generating useful risk assessments. "We have a bad time predicting in real time when and where hurricanes will develop," says Emanuel. "It's not even easy to state over a long period of time what the probability is."

Emanuel is refining risk assessment by adding physics to the mix. His laptop-run program takes into account not only a century's worth of actual storms, but also the temperature at the ocean's surface, from which a hurricane derives much of its energy, as well as air currents, to generate tens of thousands of potential hurricane tracks. For instance, only 29 hurricanes have landed within 100 kilometers of Miami in the past century _ relatively little data to help predict potential future damage. Emanuel can conjure up thousands of possible storms evolving in the Atlantic and pounding that city with winds of a given intensity. The real trick, says Emanuel, will involve factoring in climate change. He's found a correlation between sea surface temperature and wind speed that poses serious consequences for a world that's rapidly heating up, with "a greatly increased hurricane destructive potential," says Emanuel. However, from a "U.S.-centric point of view, on a 50-year timescale, this probably doesn't mean much at all." The likelihood of another superstorm like Katrina or Rita hitting our coast will be a matter of bad luck. But gazing beyond a 50-year horizon, "then you have to worry about global trends," he says.

About the Speaker(s): Kerry Emanuel has been on the faculty of MIT since 1981. He was previously at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research focuses on tropical meteorology and climate, with a specialty in hurricane physics. His interests also include cumulus convection, and advanced methods of sampling the atmosphere in aid of numerical weather prediction. He is the author or co-author of more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers, and two books, including Divine Wind: The History and Science of Hurricanes, (2005, Oxford University Press).
Emanuel received his S.B. in Earth and Planetary Sciences from MIT, and earned a Ph.D. in Meteorology from MIT in 1978.

Host(s): Office of the President, Office of the President

Tape #: T20492]]>
Mon, 12 Dec 2011 20:45:32 -0500http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/16050-what-does-current-scientific-research-have-to-say-about-the-present-and-future-risks-associated-with-
http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/16050-what-does-current-scientific-research-have-to-say-about-the-present-and-future-risks-associated-with-
What Does Current Scientific Research Have to Say About the Present and Future Risks Associated with Hurricanes?
MIT World — special events and lectures Interdisciplinary Research at MIT: Making Uncommon Connections
Alice P. Gast, Vice President for Research and Associate Provost ; Rosalind H. Williams, HM, Bern Dibner Professor of the History of Science and Technology; Sallie Chisholm, Lee and Geraldine Martin Professor of Environmental Studies and Professor of Biology, MIT; Moungi G. Bawendi, Professor of Chemistry; Alexander Slocum, '82, SM '83, PhD '85, Professor of Mechanical Engineering; MacVicar Faculty Fellow

Description: "The Multidisciplinary Forest of MIT: From Twigs to Canopy"
MIT's 19th century founders stunningly anticipated the 20th century convergence of science and technology, Rosalind Williams notes, with their emphasis on knowledge of both natural laws and applied engineering. The connection between the two different disciplines, says Williams, was "something new in history." Scientific understanding had previously been "aristocratic, elitist, intellectual, and 'speculative." Technology had been "more lower class, empirical and action-oriented." MIT's approach was to meld engineering with pure science, and then, after World War 2, to broaden engineering by connecting with the social sciences. Today, MIT has become a "pioneer in deep 'multidisciplinarity'," says Williams, enabled to address key human problems involving science, technology and society.

"Marine Microbes: Tiny Cells, Global Impact"
Please don't confuse Penny Chisholm's beloved Prochlorococcus, (a marine microbe) with your run of the mill bacterium, or worse, with some dreaded pathogen. This species of phytoplankton, discovered in 1985, turns out to be a biological superstar. As Chisholm says, "My organism is extremely important." Prochlorococcus, existing in abundance in much of the world's oceans, is a remarkable biological pump. It and fellow phytoplankton suck up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and engage in "almost as much photosynthesis as trees and plants on land," says Chisholm. We must begin to look at the sea "as teaming with information," remarks Chisholm, with microbes "shaping the composition of the atmosphere, seawater and habitability of the earth itself."

"Tiny Crystals: The Path From Science to Technology"
Trial and error played a large role in the evolution of Moungi Bawendi's field, which emerged from research in different disciplines: the search for solar energy during the energy crisis of the 1970s; making smaller semiconductors; constructing lasers for products like CD players. Physical chemists, manipulating tiny particles in different solutions, saw them grow "like snowflakes" into different shapes, says Bawendi. Some of these particles emitted different colors of light. Researchers developed fluorescent microspheres, particles made out of silica, that emit specific colors. Today these tiny balls can be used to image blood flow to detect leaks in tumor walls. Apply a current and the balls go in different directions. "These are the kinds of discoveries that grad students stumble on if they work late at night," says Bawendi. Nanocrystal quantum dot lasers make "beautiful colors for computers," and biologists can use these quantum dots for color coding DNA chains in gene assays and possibly for biomedical imaging in living organisms.

"Big Iron to Little Silicon"
After a poetic tribute to his colleagues, Alex Slocum performs what he calls "a high speed download." He speaks of the different paths to invention, from sitting at a CAD station, to heading off for a mountain hike. He sketches the idea of a "nanotube spinneret, analogous to a showerhead." Slocum's goal "is to wear the first Hawaiian shirt made from nanotubes." Slocum's work is living proof of his motto: "Science doesn't have to be boring." He designs "stuff from silicon wafers to bottles," to lighter wind turbines and nodes for pool noodles. Slocum views the design process as a way to have fun with math an approach he'd dearly like to promulgate. He's pursuing an educational system for grade schools that aims to teach "systematic thinking and the scientific method" using rhymes, bath songs and computer animations.

Host(s): Office of the President, The Inauguration Committee

Tape #: T19950]]>
Mon, 12 Dec 2011 20:18:19 -0500http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/16027-interdisciplinary-research-at-mit-making-uncommon-connections
http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/16027-interdisciplinary-research-at-mit-making-uncommon-connections
Interdisciplinary Research at MIT: Making Uncommon Connections
MIT World — special events and lectures Vegetation Dynamics and the Earth System
Martin Claussen, Professor of Climate Physics, Head of the Climate System Department,; Managing Director, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam University

Description: Climate change does not unfold gradually or in a linear way. Peering back 11,000 years in our own Holocene era, Martin Claussen sketches a picture of abrupt and brutal shifts in the biosphere. His work involves modeling complex interactions among atmosphere, ocean, sea ice and vegetation. The Sahara Desert was once a green oasis, but dramatic disruptions in the last six thousand years led to its very rapid browning. Claussen's models demonstrate that a slow evolution in the earth's orbit and its tilt toward the sun triggered a reaction that led to swift loss of moisture and vegetation in North Africa. Claussen believes that interactions within Earth's climate system -- specifically between vegetation cover and sea ice -- amplified the impact of the orbital shifts. "If the system gets a slight kick, it can jump from green to desert," says Claussen. As a result of this change, humans may have been forced to migrate from the devastated Sahara region to the fertile Tigris, Euphrates and Nile River valleys, where new civilizations sprang up. Looking forward, Claussen notes that triggers such as an excess of human-generated carbon dioxide or deforestation might provoke similar dramatic climatic changes in global hotspots

About the Speaker(s): Claussen received his Diploma in Meteorology from the University of Hamburg in 1981, was awarded his Ph.D. at the Max-Planck Institue for Meteorology in 1984, and received his Habilitation at the University of Hamburg in 1991. He was on the faculty at Free University of Berlin and has held research scientist appointments at Max-Planck Institute for Meteorology, GKSS Research Center in Geestacht, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Claussen has served as chair of the German Meteorological Society since 2003 and Secretary (Climate Modelling) of the European Geosciences Union since 2004. He is a member of the German National Committee on Global Change Research, the German Meteorological Society, the European Geosciences Union and the American Geophysical Union.

Host(s): School of Science, Center for Global Change Science

Tape #: 19834]]>
Mon, 12 Dec 2011 20:11:39 -0500http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/16021-vegetation-dynamics-and-the-earth-system
http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/16021-vegetation-dynamics-and-the-earth-system
Vegetation Dynamics and the Earth System
MIT World — special events and lectures Civil War High Tech: Excavating the Hunley and Monitor
Merritt Roe Smith, Leverett and William Cutten Professor of the History of Technology; ; Maria Jacobson, Hunley Project conservator ; ; David A. Mindell, PhD '96, Frances and David Dibner Associate Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing; ; Brendan Foley, PhD '03

Description: In the last few years, archaeologists have recovered two of the Civil War's most ingenious inventions: the Union ironclad warship Monitor and the Confederate submarine Hunley. In this symposium panelists discuss the newest technology projects that have brought these inventions to light from the sea depths, and what they can teach about technology and the Civil War.

Host(s): School of Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences, Deep Water Archaeology Research Group

Tape #: T15767]]>
Mon, 12 Dec 2011 17:49:12 -0500http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/15874-civil-war-high-tech-excavating-the-hunley-and-monitor
http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/15874-civil-war-high-tech-excavating-the-hunley-and-monitor
Civil War High Tech: Excavating the Hunley and Monitor
MIT World — special events and lectures Stephanie Dutkiewicz follows the motion of the ocean, its nutrients, and phytoplankton
Stephanie’s work begins with 3-Dimensional modeling of how ocean waters move and mix, an effort accomplished through collaboration with MIT research scientist Jeffrey Scott. She then overlays information on how carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and other nutrients move on top of these computer simulations.

Next, Stephanie models the biological component. “The oceans are responsible for about 50% of primary production,” explains Stephanie. “So 50% of the sunlight that is taken into the body of plant-like organisms (phytoplankton) occurs in the ocean.” These organisms take up carbon and other nutrients and, upon dying, some fraction sink to the bottom of the ocean, carrying those nutrients with them.

But not all phytoplankton are created equal— some species are better able to act as carbon sinks than others. Phytoplankton structure and type is driven by ocean circulation and the distribution of nutrients. Large species pull more carbon into deep ocean reservoirs when they sink; smaller species less.

As climate change affects ocean circulation and nutrient availability, some species may become “winners”, filling ecological niches and spreading to new geographical regions. Other species may die out. Stephanie models how these community structures change in the future, and how those changes in turn affect carbon cycling.

Unfortunately, it seems climate change favors mostly the smaller species, resulting in less of a carbon sink. “Understanding climate change means understanding feedbacks,” says Stephanie. “If the ocean takes up less carbon, that’s a feedback into the carbon system.”

During her 12 years at MIT, Stephanie has contributed to the development of the Joint Program’s Integrated Global Systems Model (IGSM) and collaborated with the MIT Climate Modeling Initiative and the Darwin Project. “I really like the group of people I’m working with. Developing this model has been quite exciting— it’s a good place to be.”
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Wed, 05 Oct 2011 10:43:19 -0400http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/14482-stephanie-dutkiewicz-follows-the-motion-of-the-ocean-its-nutrients-and-phytoplankton
http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/14482-stephanie-dutkiewicz-follows-the-motion-of-the-ocean-its-nutrients-and-phytoplankton
Stephanie Dutkiewicz follows the motion of the ocean, its nutrients, and phytoplankton
Researcher Highlights RLE Investigator Profile Video Series: Alan V. OppenheimWed, 21 Sep 2011 15:36:12 -0400http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/14258-rle-investigator-profile-video-series-alan-v-oppenheim
http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/14258-rle-investigator-profile-video-series-alan-v-oppenheim
RLE Investigator Profile Video Series: Alan V. Oppenheim
RLE Math, Modeling and the Ocean Carbon Storage Story
Dependence of the ocean-atmosphere partitioning of carbon on temperature and alkalinity Omta and co-authors explain this decrease in carbon uptake by means of a theory based on elementary carbonate chemistry which is also applied to study the effect of ocean temperature on carbon partitioning.
In this interview he describes his work, the path that brought him to PAOC and what excites him about his research.]]>
Tue, 19 Jul 2011 15:22:05 -0400http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/13567-math-modeling-and-the-ocean-carbon-storage-story
http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/13567-math-modeling-and-the-ocean-carbon-storage-story
Math, Modeling and the Ocean Carbon Storage Story
EAPS The Light of the Dark OceanTue, 14 Jun 2011 13:10:26 -0400http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/13183-the-light-of-the-dark-ocean
http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/13183-the-light-of-the-dark-ocean
The Light of the Dark Ocean
Knight Science Journalism Fellows 2010-2011 Keynote Address: Future Exploration Opportunities
MIT150 SymposiumEarth, Air, Ocean and Space: The Future of Exploration

A panel of experts will provide a forum for idea generation and strategic planning for the future of exploration.

The five final student teams share their 'Revolutionary Exploration Ideas for the 21st Century", which will be judged by an invited panel of explorers. Competition website: http://explore.mit.edu.]]>
Mon, 16 May 2011 11:51:32 -0400http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/12908-xcor-student-showcase-competition-great-exploration-ideas-for-the-future
http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/12908-xcor-student-showcase-competition-great-exploration-ideas-for-the-future
XCOR Student Showcase Competition: Great Exploration Ideas for the Future
MIT150 Symposia: Earth, Air, Ocean and Space: The Future of Exploration Symposium Explorers' Panel
MIT150 SymposiumEarth, Air, Ocean and Space: The Future of Exploration

Explorers of earth, air, ocean, and space share the extreme challenges and rewards of universal exploration. Guest appearance by astronaut Catherine (Cady) Coleman '83, currently aboard the International Space Station.

A historical perspective of exploration and discovery with leading authors.

WelcomeDavid A. Mindell PhD '96 - Chair of the MIT150 Steering Committee; Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing; Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and of Engineering Systems; Head, MIT Program in Science, Technology, and Society

SpeakersStephen J. Pyne - Author and Regents' Professor, Arizona State UniversityRosalind H. Williams - Bern Dibner Professor of the History of Science and Technology, MITDavid A. Mindell PhD '96 - Chair of the MIT150 Steering Committee; Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing; Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and of Engineering Systems; Head, MIT Program in Science, Technology, and Society
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Fri, 13 May 2011 10:46:13 -0400http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/12855-great-ages-of-exploration-and-discovery-panel
http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/12855-great-ages-of-exploration-and-discovery-panel
Great Ages of Exploration and Discovery Panel
MIT150 Symposia: Earth, Air, Ocean and Space: The Future of Exploration Symposium MIT Astronaut Alumni Panel: Exploration and Discovery
MIT150 SymposiumEarth, Air, Ocean and Space: The Future of Exploration

MIT alumni astronauts discuss spaceflight experiences that range from Gemini to Apollo through the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station missions.

SpeakersW. Eric L. Grimson PhD '80 - MIT Chancellor; Bernard Gordon Professor of Medical Engineering; Professor of Computer ScienceDavid A. Mindell PhD '96 - MIT150 Steering Committee; Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing; Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and of Engineering Systems; Head, MIT Program in Science, Technology, and SocietyDava J. Newman SM '89 PhD '92 - MIT150 Exploration Symposium; Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and of Engineering Systems; Director, Technology and Policy Program, MIT]]>
Fri, 13 May 2011 10:39:45 -0400http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/12853-welcome-day-1
http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/12853-welcome-day-1
Welcome - Day 1
MIT150 Symposia: Earth, Air, Ocean and Space: The Future of Exploration Symposium Ocean EngineeringTue, 26 Apr 2011 15:44:28 -0400http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/12440-ocean-engineering
http://ttv.mit.edu/videos/12440-ocean-engineering
Ocean Engineering
Elemental MIT Doctoral Student Dan Chavas asks how meteorological changes affect hurricane size
Using weather models, Dan is investigating how specific changes in meteorological conditions impact the final size of an eventual hurricane. By relating initial weather conditions to the final storms that they produce, Dan hopes to improve our ability to predict how large forming storms will eventually become. “If we can predict that,” he explains, “it’s useful because these storms impact people’s lives—they make landfall and destroy things, and a bigger storm affects a bigger area.” By allowing us to predict the final size of a forming storm, Dan’s work may enable us to better prepare for and respond to emerging hurricanes. As both the frequency and intensity of severe weather events could increase with climate change, this predictive capacity may become increasingly important.

Discussing his work, Dan describes hurricane research as an “open area,” saying, “There is a lot of research to be done in the field, which makes it kind of exciting… we still don’t really understand how hurricanes form; we are not very good at predicting when they are going to get stronger or weaker. There are a lot of fundamental things that we don’t understand still.” For this reason, he may continue to study how hurricanes develop after completing his doctorate. However, Dan is also interested in the policy side of things and would like to work at the nexus where science meets decision-making. For now, Dan is enjoying his work with the Joint Program and being involved with “a lot of interesting people doing a lot of interesting work.”